Saints Row 2 Walkthrough & Strategy Guide

READ THE WHOLE MISSION WALKTHROUGH BEFORE PROCEEDING. There's an oddity as a result as a bug at the end, so may need to do a bit of extra preparation. If nothing else, restock as much pistol, SMG, and shotgun ammo you can at Friendly Fire. Do NOT buy any assault rifle or RPG/Sniper Rifle ammo unless you enjoy wasting money.

Over a game of skee-ball (where your character proves to be the absolute worst skee-ball player in the flippin' universe), Shaundi reports the oddity that Maero was looking up the time of arrival for his own shipment. The moment the mission starts, she follows up that Maero has bought guns for every part that can pull a trigger.

Grab as many followers as you can before proceeding. Three blue target blips show up on your map, each leading to a different vehicle. It doesn't particularly matter which you pick, as all three can seat four; we recommend the speedboat over at the Stoughton hood in the Docks & Warehouses district. Either way, drive or fly from you chosen vehicle to the new blip that appears on your map: the cargo ship.

You need to take out the Ultor security first, but they're fairly weak. Head down to the cargo hold, and Shaundi will call you up to report that the Brotherhood are on their way. The thing is, the hold of the ship has RPG and assault rifles everywhere, so at least you'll have a fighting chance.

Load up on ammo, then head up to the deck quickly. Three waves of Brotherhood will appear, including several Brotherhood helicopters, and you'll need to take them all out. You'll die quickly if you just stand out in the middle of the deck, so try taking cover in the small section of the ship that led down to the hold: the baddies will bottleneck at the entrance and should be easy pickings.

Between each wave, you'll have ten seconds of peace to go back to the cargo hold and restock your ammo. Now, it looks like the intention of the mission was that the Brotherhood would head to the cargo hold, so you could stay close and make restocking feasible. However, the enemies seem a little bugged: they tend to get hung up on the doors and obstacles on the deck, and few actually manage to get down to you.

What this means is that you'll wind up doing most of your fighting on the deck, and if the helicopters are enough of a pain to make you miss a lot, you won't actually have time to get back down to restock your ammo. This, of course, is a problem... If you took our advice and bought a ton of ammo (or you're reading this before actually doing the mission), then you'll be all right.

One strategy was to use pistols and SMGs against the enemies from a safe location. Then we emerged and went up to the very tip of the bow. If you can maneuver yourself so you can practically see the front of a helicopter as if flies toward you, you should use your assault rifle or RPG to blast the pilot's window. If you can't position yourself that way (some of the higher flying copters are at odd angles), then your best bet is actually your shotgun. The only exception here is if you're extremely skilled with the RPG and can aim it accurately despite the slower trajectory of the rounds.

An alternate strategy is to stay at the bow after you take out the helicopters and take out the enemies as they head up the steps. It's more open and there are fewer places to hide for you, and the enemies don't bottleneck quite as well. However, your followers won't necessarily make a mess of things quite as bad up there (if a follower picks up an RPG he might cause far more problems for you than the enemy). Staying in the small ship section gets you into trouble if you emerge, so if you're more of a run-and-gun type, staying outside might be better. Staying at the bow at least allows you to keep your back safe.

Regardless of your strategy, after each wave, you can attempt to get back to the cargo hold, but you probably won't make it. If you can't, just retreat to the bow or the small section of the ship, whichever you deem better, and prepare yourself for the next round. Really, if you're maxed out on ammo, you really won't need to restock after each wave unless you're a poor shot.

If you think you've killed everyone but another wave doesn't start, more than likely what happened is that at least one enemy fell out of his vehicle and is in the waters somewhere. If you can shoot from the ship, do so... if not, you might have to find a boat and drive out to him to finish him off. You can stay away from the cargo ship for 30 seconds before the mission fails itself, which should be enough time to find him no matter where he is. If it gets close, just head back to the ship, reset the timer, and try again.

After the third wave, you'll get a significant amount of cash, as well as the personal satisfaction of getting through a tough mission!